What is the situation regarding aborted foetal tissue and coronavirus vaccines, something alternative health sites have been discussing? I do not know what the situation is with the coming Australian vaccine, but as usual Dr Mercola has an insightful analysis, debunking the standard arguments.
“In addition to standard concerns over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is the moral dilemma of taking vaccines made with aborted fetal cells. For many, this alone is a cause for objection. Several of the vaccine candidates, including AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, are made using aborted fetal cell lines.
Several fact checkers — including Politifact, The Associated Press and Snopes — have labeled the claim as "false," but is it? As it turns out, fact checkers are relying on semantics to "debunk" this claim. In reality, most thinking individuals are able to determine the truth of the matter once the details are explained.
Semantics and Technicalities Used to 'Debunk' the Truth
A common mistake by less experienced citizen journalists is to use rather general terms, assuming people will "get the gist" without having to be overly specific, and this is precisely what self-declared fact checkers home in on when rating something false or misleading.
Fact checkers routinely rely on semantics and technicalities to break apart a given claim, and unless you carefully read their explanation, you're likely to miss this and simply write it off based on the headline claiming something to be false. The case of COVID-19 vaccines containing aborted fetal cells is a perfect example of this, so let's go through some of what you need to know before discounting this claim off-hand.
Commonly Used Fetal Cell Lines
There are several cell lines commonly used in vaccine development that originate from aborted fetuses, including:
- HEK293 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from kidney tissue obtained from a female fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1972
- MRC5 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the lung tissue of a 14-week-old male fetus aborted in 1966
- C6 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the retina of an 18-week-old male fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1985
- WI38 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the lung tissue of a 12-week-old female fetus aborted in 1961
Vaccine makers using either "ethically derived" cell lines, meaning cell lines that do not originate from aborted human fetuses, or no cell lines at all, include Moderna, Merck, Novavax, Sanofi Pasteur, Pfizer, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Sinovac.
Now, the claim made by some citizen journalists is that certain COVID-19 vaccines "contain cells from an aborted fetus." One video headline stated: "CONFIRMED — aborted fetus in COVID-19 vaccine."
Fact checkers have "debunked" these claims and labeled them false, in one instance because the name of the fetal cell line was incorrect, and in others because the vaccines do not literally "contain" these cells; rather, the fetal cell lines were used as a growth medium for the virus during the production phase.
In yet other instances, fact checkers have slapped a false label on it by claiming the cell lines are not the original cells but, rather, clones thereof. All of these justifications are really all about semantics. What most people are referring to when they object to the use of fetal cell lines is that an aborted fetus was used. Period.
While some may indeed be concerned about the actual, literal inclusion of fetal cells in the finished vaccine, typically, it's simply a moral objection to the use of aborted fetuses in medical research and development.
So, labeling the claim that "COVID-19 vaccines contain fetal cells" as "false" can actually be just as misleading, as this ignores the moral issue of aborted fetuses being used in medicine, and in fact makes it sound as though it's not happening. Again, you'd have to read the whole fact checking article to see that fetal cell lines are indeed used in the development of some of these vaccines, and the "false" label is based on some technical detail or specificity of the verbiage.
How Are Fetal Cell Lines Used in Vaccine Development?
So, what is a fetal cell line, really, and how is it used in vaccine development? Simplified layman's answers to these questions can be found in the fact sheet "COVID Vaccines & Fetal Cell Lines," created by the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
The following illustrations and descriptions are taken from the first page of that fact sheet. The bottom illustration shows the specific role of these cell lines. The cells are used as a growth medium for the virus, since the virus needs a living cell to infect and multiply in. The viruses are then harvested from the cells and purified (and inactivated in the case of inactivated vaccines) before being added to the final vaccine as one of several ingredients.”
Thus, the moral issue is not necessarily that the vaccine might contain cells which were derived from aborted foetuses, but that the production of the vaccine still made use at some point of these cells, even as a growth medium. That is the core moral argument that the Left-wing fact checkers conveniently ignore.
The larger issue with the Covid-19 vaccine relates to the use of synthetic biology, genetic engineering 2.0, and playing God, and the unintended, and more frighteningly the intended consequences of this.
https://www.technocracy.news/covid-mrna-vaccines-kick-off-planetary-genetic-overwrite/
“Synthetic engineering of plant and animal life has enabled corporations to patent and profit from genetic code.
Because synthetic biology is a different technique than older genetic engineering tech, the supreme court ruled in 2013 that synthetic DNA can be patented because it is not a “product of nature”. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote,
“…the lab technician unquestionably creates something new when cDNA is made. cDNA retains the naturally occurring exons of DNA, but it is distinct from the DNA from which it was derived. As a result, cDNA is not a “product of nature” and is patent eligible under §101, except insofar as very short series of DNA may have no intervening introns to remove when creating cDNA”.
“Food 2.0”
Synthetic biology ingredients have already quietly entered our food supply. Nature reported in 2014, “This year [Evolva] will release a product that has been created by genetically modified yeast that converts sugars to vanillin. It will be the first major synthetic-biology food additive to hit supermarkets.”
Since then, other synthetic foods have been developed. Synthetic biology has created plant based burgers, eggs, and shrimp. Forbes reports,
“With the advent of synthetic biology, the easy reading, writing and editing of DNA could open up a whole new world of designer proteins with enhanced nutrition, flavors, fragrances, and material properties.”
Humans re-engineered with new vaccines
The New York Times reported on the developing vaccine technology called “immunoprophylaxis by gene transfer” in 2015. As the Times reported, animal tests on the synthetic DNA vaccine “are essentially re-engineering the animals to resist disease.”
The New York Times piece went on to say, “…the prospect of genetically engineering people to resist infectious diseases may raise concerns among patients“.
Now, in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, human beings are set to be genetically altered with mRNA vaccine technology based on synthetic biology.
As reported, the Gates funded synthetic biologists believe that they can “do better” than nature with “self-assembling nanoparticles” that will be injected into your body:
“With all due respect to nature, synthetic biologists believe they can do better. Using computers, they are designing new, self-assembling protein nanoparticles studded with viral proteins, called antigens: these porcupine-like particles would be the guts of a vaccine.”
My guess is that it will be yet another techno-disaster.